


Shine Your Way

by alby_mangroves



Series: Words, not art [10]
Category: The Croods (2013)
Genre: Cavemen, F/M, Fluff, Night On Fic Mountain 2014, Storytelling, Sun Worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-05 21:03:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1832215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/pseuds/alby_mangroves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nights had been silent in the old cave, black and complete.</p><p>Out here, though, in the vast unknown past the end of the world? Well. The old rules did not apply, and even if they had, there were no convenient walls in the jungle on which to paint them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shine Your Way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LittleRaven](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/gifts).



> Thanks to MJ for the Beta and brainstorming <3

Nights had been silent in the old cave, black and complete.

Out here though, in the vast unknown past the end of the world? Well. The old rules did not apply, and even if they had, there were no convenient walls in the jungle on which to paint them.

It was never truly dark at all anymore, not even after the sun went off on its journey to Tomorrow.

Outside in the open, there were no two-knuckle warnings for cramming the whole family into a stuffy, airless hole. There was only a light breeze stirring the trees above into a whisper, moonlight to make the leaves shine and shimmer, and the wonderful magic of Guy’s fire to warm them and keep the bad things at bay.

Everything was alive and vital out here, even after dark, and nighttime would never be the same again. Eep wouldn’t go back to the way it had been for anything. Stretched out under an enormous tree, she looked at the sky through the gaps in its leafy branches and breathed in the sweet, fresh night air.

Not far away, the pile of warm bodies and curled up limbs that was Eep’s family rose and fell as one, synchronised in sleep, with Sandy spread-eagled overtop like a snoring, spread-eagled thing.

Eep grinned up at the stars. Her family was still together and they were all alive, safe and well after their adventure; it was as much as anyone could wish from their Tomorrow. Even Dad.

“Can’t sleep?”

Guy’s voice filtered from the trees above and Eep searched for its source, finding Guy’s feet swinging among the greenery. Quick as a flash, she climbed the thick trunk up to his perch, annoyed at slipping a little as her toes - used to finding their naked grip - fought to flex against the soles of her new shoes.

She settled next to Guy on the branch and looked down over a world swathed in darkness, the gleam of the moon reflected in the vast water stretching out before them.

She had never even imagined such a thing, but there it was, as real as the rock of the cave she had known all her life.

“Who could sleep with all this going on?”

Guy glanced down between his dangling feet to where the Croods lay sleeping between two enormous, snuggling cats, and one tiny Douglas lolling about on his back with his paws in the air. “They can.”

Eep sighed, eyes trained on the horizon. “Sometimes I wonder what else is out there. I mean, I’ve already seen so much, but every day there is still something new. How much new could there be?”

Sometimes Eep thought her head would crack like an egg from the pressure of all the questions inside it.

“Maybe there is enough new to last forever,” Guy said, absently scratching a sleeping Belt under his furry chin.

“You’re such an optimist.” Eep nudged him lightly with her shoulder, then politely ignored his indignant squawk as she righted him on the branch by the scruff of the neck. It was a wonder he’d managed to stay alive this long, honestly, what with his complete lack of coordination and balance.

She smiled indulgently just as an alarming thought struck her. ”Maybe there _is_ no more new when we get to Tomorrow. What if we’ve used up all the new?”

“That’d make Grug happy,” Guy grumbled under his breath.

“Dad would be ecstatic,” Eep agreed.

“He would. I think he already ran out of words that rhyme with Grug.”

Eep sniggered, and they sat side by side watching the quiet nightscape, strange jungle sounds hooting and cawing all around them and disappearing like ripples into the night.

“Where do the suns come from, anyway?” Eep asked, the thought coming to her out of the blue.

Guy blinked and made a face. “Wow. That’s--I have not thought about that.”

The world was almost too vast to comprehend, Eep thought, so much bigger than she had imagined, living her entire life within stone’s throw of a small, dank cave. Suddenly, she wasn’t just curious to know more. She was positively _desperate_.

“Sometimes I look up and think we’re still in a cave,” she said.

“What? Why would you think that?” Around Guy’s middle, Belt stirred and grumbled at the noise, and Guy lowered his voice, patting down Belt’s softly gleaming fur until the little sloth settled again. “I mean, look around! This is literally the opposite of a cave.”

Eep thought back to the way the walls and ceiling of their cave used to glimmer with light sometimes, as if the day’s leftovers were clinging to it, as reluctant to leave as she was to see them go. She shrugged.

“It could be a cave, though. A huge cave, big enough to fit the whole world inside it,” she said, wondering. “Back in our cave, there were tiny suns in the rock.”

They would twinkle at her as she curled in the little sleeping place on her ledge. Not the same as the sunny brightness which warmed her skin during the day; they had been cold and inconstant flickers, and something about them made her feel weightless and bigger than her own skin.

“Maybe this is the same,” she said. “Just in a really, really big cave.”

Guy hummed. “Say that's true . . . you don't seem upset. I thought you hated being stuck in the cave.”

Above them, the tiny suns which had already gone on their way to Tomorrow glittered and gleamed and winked happily. Eep smiled right back. “Oh, but this is a _much_ better cave.”

They watched the moon for a while, big and fat, its progress marked by its slide past the branches above them until it started to sink toward the horizon.

“Why are you up here, anyway?” She asked then, wondering if Guy, too, had been unable to sleep because there were too many thoughts in his head.

“Oh well, Belt and I, we like to get up early sometimes and watch the sunrise,” Guy said, feet swinging back and forth. At his hip, Belt yawned and smacked his lips together, giving Eep a bleary eyed stare.

“Watch the what?”

“The sunrise. Have you never--?”

“Remember how I said we didn’t get out much? Yeah. Also, we never went outside until all the nighttime animals had gone to sleep.”

“Ah, look at that, it’s another new thing after all!”

Eep cuffed him lightly upside the head and politely ignored the yelp which followed. “What does it look like, the sunrise? Where will it happen? Is it--”

“Whoa there, ease up!” Guy rubbed at his ear and Eep rolled her eyes. He smiled and leaned back into the tree trunk with his hands laced behind his head. “Won’t be long now. And it will happen over there,” he said, stretching his hand out over the water. Eep followed his line of sight and settled in, hugging her legs and bracing her chin on her knees.

They waited together in the dark, huddled side by side in the tree. Before long, Belt began to stir and stretch, his long arms winding around Guy's chest like hairy snakes.

He pulled himself up around Guy’s neck and perched in a loose coil around the topknot on his head.

“You’re a rug,” Eep said, laughing, and Belt gurgled his approval, green eyes glinting in the dark and stretching for Guy’s fingers to pet under his chin.

When the sky began to lighten, she almost missed it, so gradual was the change, but when she blinked to clear the strange haze from her eyes it was definitely there. A very slight tinge separated the water from the sky where before there had been only the densest night.

“What’s happening?” Eep’s eyes felt like they’d pop out of her head if they got any bigger. On the horizon, a faint purple glow had begun to creep up the skyline. She bit her lip in anticipation and grabbed at Guy’s arm to haul him up as she rose, stopping his silly flailing with the crush of her arms.

“A new sun is being born,” said Guy, a quiet reverence marking his voice. They watched with their heads close together as the sky lightened until the line between water and air was a shimmering haze of orange and pink so intense, Eep had to squint her eyes against it.

“I like this story,” Eep said quietly. “I’ve never seen a sun be born before.”

Belt unwound his arms from Guy’s head with a triumphant cry as the huge gold disc began to rise, seemingly from the water. “Dun, dun, duuuun!” He announced, and Guy rolled his eyes with a fond smile.

“It’s beautiful,” Eep said, stretching up on her toes to see better. When her family made their way out of the cave to hunt, the sun was always already in the sky, and the ravine they lived in had been too deep to see it properly, anyway.

“I can’t believe I’ve never been awake early enough to see this before,” she said.

Guy snorted. “I can,” he muttered under his breath.

Eep shot him a dark glare.

“Well I don’t want to miss it ever again,” she said with conviction.

This moment, this incredible birth of Today was like nothing Eep had ever seen before, and she stared in awe, all three of them looking out over the water together.

“Maybe it’s chasing the moon.” Eep said.

“Maybe they’re racing each other to see who can reach Tomorrow first.”

“The sun, of course! It’s got a Tiger on its back, making it go faster.”

Guy's shoulders shook with quiet laughter. “I like your story even better,” he said, and Eep found his hand, slipping her own into it.

They lifted their free hands to the sky, the sun’s new light warm and welcome between their fingers.

Perched between them on their shoulders, Belt hugged their heads to his small, furry body, the three of them watching as the new Today found its legs among the clouds.

~Fin~


End file.
